Sen. Joe Manchin said Friday he thinks Attorney General Eric Holder should resign in the wake of a series of scandals involving surveillance of reporters for Fox News and The Associated Press.

 

“Let me just say that … any public official — no matter whether it be the attorney general or anybody in public office — whenever you feel that you have lost your effectiveness, or may be losing your effectiveness, to the detriment of the job that you do, even though you’re a good, honest, sincere, hardworking person, you have to evaluate that and make a decision,” the West Virginia Democrat said on Bloomberg TV’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt.”

 

“And I think we’re at the time now where decisions have to be made,” he added. “I just think that, basically, in light of what is going on in the country and everybody looking at it — it might be the most well-intended person with the best of intentions, but if they’re not being effective and they’re not being received, how effective is it and how good is it for the country?”

Calls for Holder to go have been growing.

 

During his May 15 testimony, Holder said under oath that he knew nothing of the “potential prosecution” of the press. Days later, it emerged that Holder was involved in his department’s successful effort to obtain Fox News reporter James Rosen’s personal emails — the DOJ sought access to the documents by arguing Rosen was a likely criminal “co-conspirator” in a leak case.

 

The Justice Department also got a subpoena for the phone records of 20 AP reporters and editors. The government claimed it was trying to hunt down a leak relating to a foiled terror attack in Yemen